Gay couple not a 'family' in WarrenBetween the Lines / February 2,
2006by Dawn Wolfe Gutterman

On Jan. 23,
the Detroit News reported that a gay couple has been refused family
membership by the Warren Community Center.

Mark Jeason
and his partner, Martin Murdick, have been together for nearly 18
years, according to the report. However, the Warren Community Center
defines the term "family" for purposes of membership as a married
man and woman and their children. Jeason and Murdick are living with
and caring for Murdick's disabled mother.

As a result
of the discrimination against their family, Jeason and Murdick are
considering moving out of Warren, according to the report. The
couple have lived and paid taxes in the city for fourteen years,
according to Murdick.

"I don't
count as a citizen of Warren," Jeason is quoted as saying.

"Warren
must step up to the plate and honor gay and lesbian families," said
Sean Kosofsky, policy director of the Triangle Foundation. "As
taxpayers that contribute to the wellbeing of the city, our families
should be allowed to access family memberships at the recreation
center."

Murdick
told BTL that he wanted the family membership to give his mother
more recreational opportunities.

After going
in on Martin Luther King Day to apply, "I was told in no uncertain
terms that the city of Warren doesn't consider us a family," he
said.

Murdick
noted that the Community Center's current policy also discriminates
against unmarried heterosexual couples regardless of whether they
have children.

"Warren
claims they're following state law, and that's what bothers me,"
Murdick said. "I think Warren's using that as an excuse to cover up
discrimination."

On Jan. 24,
Kosofsky and Kevin McAlpine, Triangle's director of development,
attended the Warren City Council meeting hoping to address the issue
during the public comment session. However, according to Kosofsky,
the meeting was to run until 2 a.m., with public comment scheduled
at the very end. The community center's family policy was not on the
council's agenda for the Jan. 24 meeting.

McAlpine, a
Warren resident, needed to leave at midnight.

"I think
the way to deal with this is to go through the Mayor's office,"
McAlpine said, adding that it is the Mayor's office that sets
community center policy.

McAlpine
said that he has researched the membership policies of comparably
sized community centers. "Warren is the only community that we've
found with a community center that sells memberships that
specifically has created their own definition of 'family' as
husband, wife and kids," he said. Other comparable community
centers, according to McAlpine, "have varying degrees of policies
that recognize family rates or couple rates as people that live at
the same address, or they recognize domestic partners, or gay and
lesbian couples."